


binary stars

by llien



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Universe, Child Neglect, Fluff, Honey the kids have anxiety, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Set after KH 2, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-25 21:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16206257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llien/pseuds/llien
Summary: Sora's home,everyone said.Sora's come back!Sora wasn't sure, though, if all of him came back. Riku wasn't either, teetering on the fine edge of too much, too little, and nothing ever being said — all of it overwhelming like static scraping against his skin.Sometimes, just to make it all go quiet, Riku would reach to touch Sora. Just to remind himself this was real, this was true, and that the past wasn't just nightmares.





	binary stars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the good friend (read: NOT GOOD) who dragged me into kh. I hope you _really_ enjoy this because I am suffering. KH is so so so so so ugly and hurtful and I need names to write under my Cause of Death. 
> 
> In other words, Sora and Riku are good boys but by god LET THEM REST......PLEASE......

The palm trees had soaked up the sun’s warmth all day, so despite the late hour, as Sora leaned against the bark of one he could still feel the heat radiating off of it, comforting.

At the base were tufts of grass, a layer of sand above it that Sora dug his fingers through. His nails were lined with dirt, and his shoes had long since been abandoned somewhere on the beach. When he’d first toed them off he’d hesitated, glancing at them and at the long empty span of shoreline. Old habits die hard, and Sora was learning that the hard way.

There was no place safer than their little island, but he still hesitated to be careless.

Still, he’d firmly ditched them, and now he rested with his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, nose warmer than the rest of his face where he’d already developed a sunburn. Riku would be sure to scold him when he noticed, because Riku _always_ noticed.

The healthy tan Sora had always sported was slowly coming back now that he was spending every day in the sun again. _You have freckles again,_ Riku had commented, fingers brushing against his bare shoulder where his tank showed the beginnings of stars. Something had skittered nervously down Sora’s spine and he’d laughed, loud and wide, filling the space between them where his words had suddenly failed him.

Things were weird, Sora decided. Very weird, in ways he didn’t quite get. Ever since they’d come back, everything had changed.

 _Sora's home,_ everyone said. _Sora's come back!_  
  
Sora wasn't sure, though, if all of him came back.

 _Sora_ had changed. He’d come home to a wardrobe of clothes that didn’t fit him and a mother kneeling on the hardwood floor before it and him, holding shirts too small to her chest as she sobbed. Riku had said she was mourning, but mourning what Sora didn’t understand. Together, they’d bought new, better fitting clothes, but Sora found he was missing his old ones. Favorite outfits, the best pair of shoes, the perfect water shorts that never chafed, things he hadn’t had the chance to grow out of.

Sora pretended he didn’t know about the box sitting in his mother’s closet now, filled to the brim with the things he’d grown out of. It was more than just clothes. Toys, games, books, bedsheets dotted with anchors and ships. All tucked and stored away for his mother to take out one by one in the dead of night when Sora came home smelling like sun and sea but not like her son.

 _“Give her time,”_ Riku had comforted him, a warm hand on his back, pressure bunching the fabric of Sora’s shirt as he rubbed. Riku, who had come home to a house no longer quiet or empty, overwhelmingly loud and demanding and full of tears foreign to him; Riku, who had clung to anyone he could before. Now, Riku spent as much time out as Sora did, escaping the confines of something he couldn’t call home anymore.

Sora hadn’t understood before. Now he did, kind of, intuitively, not so much in words but in a small smile and a hand tucked around Riku’s.

Sora blinked out of his reverie as the muffled sifting of sand differentiated itself from the crashing waves. He glanced back and found Riku a few feet away, long hair tousled by the wind in a way that was sure to leave tangles later. Riku held Sora's shoes by the straps in one hand, pants dirtied where the soles had bounced against them and deposited sand.

“Hey,” Sora grinned, bringing his hands up to fold his arms behind his head, resting more confidently against the tree.

Riku cocked a brow but didn’t comment yet, coming closer and ruffling Sora’s hair aggressively. Sora protested, batting Riku’s hand away. Laughing, Riku carefully sat a foot or so shy of Sora, settling Sora’s shoes in front of his crossed legs. They were cuffed at the soles already, well worn despite being relatively new. Buying an entire new wardrobe was rather expensive after all, but Sora had gotten used to one or two outfits in his years away.  

Riku, who had grown much more than even Sora had, was much worse off. But under his family’s new suffocating affection he was much more well stocked. And, of course, Riku never scuffed his shoes like Sora did.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” Riku asked, gesturing towards the expanse of horizon afforded to them from the tiny island. Sora hummed, lips quirking up in a smile, gaze drifting back to the sunset. There were clouds far in the distance, obfuscating the sun into a hazy indulgent glow. Then, accusatory, “You didn’t put on sunscreen.”

Sora couldn’t help the grin at that remark. “I could ask you the same thing,” Sora shot back, setting the tone for the rest of the conversation.

Riku rolled his eyes skywards, knowing what Sora was doing but allowing it anyways. “I can’t stay in there,” Riku said, meaning his home. “It’s like if they don’t see me every thirty minutes I might disappear again.”

Sora thought of his mother and the pancakes they’d had for the fifth time in a row. “Yeah?”

Then, because a brooding Riku was a Riku Sora didn’t like, he leapt suddenly up and onto his knees, leaning in to demand Riku’s attention. “Let’s leave!”

 _“Leave?”_ Riku reared back, word stumbling off his tongue and eyes blinking wide with surprise. “And go _where,_ genius?” Riku reached out and shoved a finger hard against Sora’s forehead, demanding more personal space.

Sora scowled and rubbed at his forehead, heedless of the sand scraping his knees and sitting on his haunches, inches away from Riku. “I don’t know,” Sora confessed. “I came up with the idea so you have to figure it out! That’s how this goes.”

“That is _not_ how it goes,” Riku grumbled, but the truth was Sora did always suggest the craziest things, and Riku always followed up with the logistics.

Sora, well and truly prepared to leave it up to Riku, started picking at the dirt under his nails. “We don’t have to leave the islands,” he said. “Just… go away from home.”

Riku grew quiet before sighing aggressively. He dug into one of his cargo shorts and dug out a napkin, grabbing Sora’s hand to wipe off the dirt before he smeared it on his own shorts. “So like what, camping?”

“Yeah!” Sora nodded, watching Riku. “Me, you, Kairi — just under the stars. I… I don’t want to go home,” Sora admitted after a beat. Riku’s fingers twitched around his.

“Why?”

“Because…” Sora glanced away, pulling his hand free to sit against the tree again. Riku’s hands fell to his lap, napkin crumpled in his palm. “I miss it. Being out there.” He lifted his hand towards the sky, towards the stars he couldn’t see yet, fingers splayed like he might be able to grab them if he just reached high enough. “Don’t get me wrong, this is home. It’s just…”

He couldn’t put into words how he craved a taste he couldn’t remember, how the sunset always made him melancholy now, full of some aching he couldn’t name. How it drove him up the wall to always feel half full, half there.

He could feel Riku staring at his face, trying to read him. Succeeding, probably. Sometimes it felt like Riku knew him better than he knew himself. It was frustrating and unfair, because Sora never had any idea what Riku was thinking when he closed himself off, face blank and eyes muddied.

Slowly, as if he was still thinking as he spoke, Riku said, “We could camp here. No one comes here anymore, and it’s quiet.” They’d be stuck there overnight, since it was dangerous to paddle their tiny boats when it was dark, but that was just fine to Sora.

Shaking off the unease, Sora sat forward again, grinning. “Then I’ll text Kairi! You ask my mom.”

“What! Why do I have to ask _your_ mom?”

“She trusts you.”

“More than her own son?”

Sora looked up at him, deadpan. “Would you trust me to organize a camping trip?”

At that, Riku snapped his mouth closed. Offended, Sora shoved at his shoulders with an indignant _hey!_ and a short tousle later, with sand thoroughly coating them, they both took out their phones.

Riku was mumbling aloud what they’d need, mind racing as he scrolled through his contacts to find Sora’s mom. Sora listened with half an ear, pulling Kairi’s name up to text.

_Sora 6:23PM: My bestest greatest most awsome friend, r u there?_

_Kairi 6:23PM: ……………..what do you want_

_Sora 6:23PM: Nothing! Just wanna kno if u want to camp with me and riku? :)_

Riku’s voice startled Sora as he suddenly spoke. “Hi— _everything’s okay.”_ The way he stressed it told Sora that his mother had immediately panicked. “No, no, we’re fine. Yeah he’s with me. We’re at the beach.” He grew quiet, listening. Sora watched Riku’s face, trying to read what he might be hearing.

“Sora wants to go camping. He says he misses _the stars.”_ Riku shot Sora a look, clearly trying to win his mother’s side by implying Sora was silly. Sora stuck his tongue out. “It’ll be fine,” Riku smiled even though she couldn’t see him. “Nothing ever happens here, and I’ll be with Sora the whole time. Kairi too.”

She must’ve said something that affronted Riku because he frowned minutely. _“Kairi’s_ more reliable than me?” Then he _really_ made a face. “That’s not true,” he protested, voice losing some of that polite-fooling-the-adults-tone he always took on. “No I don’t!”

He glanced at Sora and seemed terribly startled that Sora was still staring at him, gaze jumping away guiltily. “S-so it’s okay? Yeah….mm….okay! See you soon!”

Riku hung up with an exhausted sigh, glaring at Sora. “You owe me,” he seethed.

Sora laughed, unbearably curious. “You spent the night last week to get away from _your_ parents. I think we’re even.”

Riku’s face scrunched up, but Sora’s vibrating phone finally caught his attention again.

_Kairi 6:24PM: Let me go ask_

_Kairi 6:30PM: they said no and got mad at me_

Got mad at her? What for?

_Sora 6:34PM: why???_

_Kairi 6:34PM: it was too last minute. We have family plans or something_

She sent an angry faced emoji, puffing steam out from its ears.

_Kairi 6:35PM: Its not fair! I want to camp with you guys…_

_Sora 6:35PM: we can do it again! We have the whole summer to_

“What’d she say?” Riku leaned over Sora’s shoulder to look. He scrolled up to the start of the conversation with a finger, clicking his tongue when he got to the answer. “Here, give me,” and before Sora could respond, took his phone. Sora feigned some mild indignation, just for kicks. “Ever since we came back her parents got so weird,” Riku muttered, typing into Sora’s phone.

Riku was so close now that their shoulders were pressed against each other, and Sora leaned further against the tree, dragging Riku back by virtue of how smushed they were. Riku didn’t seem to notice, settling against the tree as he regarded the conversation he was having with Kairi.

Feeling left out, Sora rested his chin on Riku’s shoulder to read too.

_Sora: 6:36PM: riku here. Maybe we can have a sleepover instead?_

_Kairi 6:38PM: idk i’ll ask later when their not mad. I swear their being so dumb_

_Sora 6:38PM: they’re*_

_Kairi 6:38PM: now I know for sure its you riku_

“Ha ha,” Sora laughed sarcastically. Riku was more amused, chuckling as he typed out his response. “I know the difference between they’re and their!”

“Really?” Riku asked, voice rising too high. “What’s the difference between whose and who’s?” He typed the words out on Sora’s phone, flashing the screen towards him. Squinting, Sora turned the brightness down some, then hesitated. “I _thought_ so.”

“Shut up Riku!”

Riku really laughed then, sound carrying over the waves and the wind in their hair, and when he grinned at Sora he was stunned, then, by how very bright Riku’s eyes were.

It felt like Sora was never going to forget the way Riku had looked, eyes shadowed and ashamed and skittering away from Sora’s gaze.

“Come on,” Riku said, laughter still in his voice but dying down to something gentle. He locked and handed Sora’s phone over. “We’ve only got an hour of sun left and we have to grab our things.”

Flustered, Sora took his phone, then leveled a grin at Riku. “First one back buys both of us ice cream!” Then, before Riku could react, he scampered up and ran, kicking sand over Riku.

He spluttered and Sora ran laughing, bare feet thudding on the planks as he nearly slipped over the sand. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Riku fast gaining speed, Sora’s shoes safely in one hand. Riku and his _long legs._ That should count as _cheating._

Sora nearly capsized the small boat as he rushed to get a head start on rowing, an area he and Riku might be more evenly matched at.

“Sora!” Riku shouted, and then Sora was laughing almost deliriously. “You cheater!”

Rather than respond, Sora put more effort into pushing off the dock, hearing Riku’s own heavy thuds on the planks as he finally reached where his boat was tied.

Riku made it back first, but Sora didn’t mind as he bought them matching blue popsicles.

 

* * *

 

Riku tried to be as quiet as possible as he snuck back home. It wasn’t so late that he needed to sneak in, but he didn’t want his parents to know he was home. He was out of luck, though. They were in the living room, one reading and the other working on a laptop. Resigned, Riku stopped at the threshold of the room.

His mother noticed first. “Riku,” she said, glasses sitting low on her nose slipping off. She caught them and then let them rest from their necklace. “You’re home. How was the beach?”

“Nice,” Riku said.

“That so,” his father murmured, eyes glued to his reading. His father had been faster to go back to normal than his mother, but even commenting at all was still a step more than before.

Funny, how strange Riku felt now.

“Are you hungry?” His mom asked, eyes tired even as she smiled.

“No,” Riku lied.

“You ate already? What did you eat?”

“With Sora,” Riku said, glancing away as he hedged the question, focusing on a far clock.

“Oh, you saw Sora?”

“Yeah,” Riku scuffed his shoe. He hated talking to his parents. He didn’t know why, but instead of being grateful or relieved or even welcoming their change, he found himself distrustful, shying away. He didn’t know how to talk to them. He didn’t _want_ to talk to them, or anyone but Sora and Kairi for that matter.

Riku had come back all wrong, all different. Teetering on the fine edge of too much, too little, and nothing ever being said — all of it overwhelming like static scraping against his skin. That was how he’d found Sora out on their little island. He’d just been out on another one of his pointless walks, eager to be out of the house but with nothing to do.

“I see,” his mom replied, for lack of anything better to say Riku figured. Riku shifted in place, trying to hide how uncomfortable he felt. When she couldn’t come up with anything else, Riku quirked his lips with a smile that felt weird then dashed up the stairs to his room two steps at a time. His mother yelled at him not to run in the house, a statement more familiar than anything else in that entire conversation had been.

He shut the door to his room and rested against it, catching his breath. Then, very purposefully, decided not to think at all.

He packed a knapsack with a bedroll, snacks (lifted from the kitchen, breath held and weight as light as possible on the noisiest floorboards, heart pounding), some essentials, then tossed the whole thing out his window from the second floor, the fall interminable as he anticipated the bag crashing through his mother’s hedges with brambles cracking and leaves rustling. It landed mostly soundless though, and Riku sighed with relief.

He headed back towards the front door, hands in his pocket and forcing his shoulders down, feigning a relaxed air.

It was too much to hope for his parents not to notice.

Or at least, for his mom to.

She looked up again as he passed the living room, brow raising above her glasses. “You’re going back out?” She asked, sounding disappointed and upset all at once.

Riku hesitated. “Yeah?”

“It’s late,” his mom said, and she shifted to thumb her book, marking the pages.

“It’s barely seven,” Riku protested. “I just came back to grab this.” He held up a case of a game — one of Sora’s that had been not only left behind but also forgotten by the both of them.

His mother pursed her lips, studying his face, then sighed.

Riku nearly ran out his house, rounding it and ducking beneath windows to grab his bag. He couldn’t hit the road faster.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Riku saw Sora, he couldn’t help it — he reached out, grabbing Sora’s upper arm, turning it into a casual hold around his shoulders, as if he was gonna headlock Sora. His hand burned, and he resisted the impulse to squeeze tight.

He decided, quite purposefully, not to look at this too closely either.

Thinking, Riku was beginning to realize, what not only his forte but also his downfall. It was so much easier to just not think sometimes, even if it meant sleepless nights of forcing down all the thoughts he didn’t want to have, of darkness and heartless and nobodies and Sora’s eyes looking blankly at him.

“Riku!” Sora whined, drawing out the _u_ like he always did when Riku exasperated him. “I thought we were meeting at the dock!”

“I finished faster than you —like always— so I figured I’d come help. I’m surprised you’re even packed,” Riku grinned, dropping his arm and trying to ignore the way it felt like he caressed Sora. He tugged at the strap of Sora’s overstuffed duffle bag. “What’d you even put in here?”

“Sleeping bag, food, the works,” Sora said, eyes twinkling and voice purposefully deceptive. There was something else in there Sora didn’t want Riku to know about.

Riku sent him a look that told him he’d caught the obvious tell, but decided to wave the game under Sora’s nose, so close the edge of it scuffed him. Sora snorted and laughed, snatching the game to look over. “Oh, wow! It’s been ages since I’ve seen this. Did we ever even finish it?”

Riku snorted too. “No,” he said, because they’d both accused the other of cheating, started a  scuffle, a week long debate on who was right, and never got back to it. “A certain someone _cheated_ and we couldn’t keep playing.”

And just like that, they dropped right back into the same argument, details they’d long since forgotten coming back as if it had just happened.

“It just _is,”_ Sora said, huffing through his nose and crossing his arms, though his cartoonishly huge bag unbalanced him. “You totally hit me on purpose and then I lost!”

“Sora.” Riku rolled his eyes, gesturing with his hands in a tendency he was only vaguely aware of having. “I was _stretching.”_

_“Conveniently right into me while I was winning.”_

And so it went on, a comfortable argument over nothing important.

The thought that he should tell Sora’s mom Kairi wasn’t coming after all floated across his mind, but he let it drift away.

Another thought, that he should tell _his_ parents that he was camping, also drifted by, but he purposefully shoved that one away, along with the next five including icky words like _permission_ and _trouble_ and _no_ and _being grounded._ With Sora’s loud laughter in his ear, it was easier to just ignore those thoughts.

Besides, he figured, embittered, normally they wouldn’t have even noticed.

The sun was nearly fully set by the time they were back on the play island. Together, they made quick work of unloading their bags, dragging the usual supplies stored in the little shack out. Back when the island had been the center of their life, they’d all accumulated countless things in that shack, when it was easier to just leave it there for the next day and come back than to take it home. Now it was filled to the brim with forgotten air pumps, ropes, toys, half inflated balls, swimwear, among many other miscellaneous things, including camping supplies.

Now that Riku had been to other worlds outside their tiny island, he realized it was a tad odd for parents to let their kids camp out on a even tinier island, but the Destiny islands were just that way. So safe, it wasn’t even a concern once they were old enough to know better than to drown.

Sand got everywhere regardless of how tightly sealed or layered their sleeping grounds were, a lesson they’d long since learned, so they ditched really sleeping in the bags and just lay back on a threadbare blanket, two camping lights behind their heads illuminating them in a small circle, Sora’s shoes once again tossed to the side along with Riku’s set at least upright, if haphazardly beside Sora’s.

Sora was talking enthusiastically, argument forgotten sometime between rowing and setting up camp, hands gesturing in the air above him. “I was an actual lion! You didn’t go to that world, right? It was so strange. I kept tripping over my own paws.”

Riku snorted with laughter, trying to envision a cub with too big paws, tumbling all over the place.

“Then they told me I wasn’t suitable to be king.” Sora huffed. “I’d totally be a great king!”

Riku rolled onto his side, head pillowed by his folded arm. “Oh yeah? And who was it saying they couldn’t be responsible for even organizing a camping trip?”

Sora sat up, scowling. “Hey! That’s _different.”_ He grabbed his balled up hoodie and tossed it into Riku’s face. Riku caught it easily, shoving it under his head to use as a pillow instead. Sora sniffed. “Being a king is about having all the right qualities. Like, uhhh… you know. Kindness. Being wise. That stuff.”

“And _you’re_ wise?”

“Riku,” Sora muttered, warning.

“I bet any kingdom you’d have would collapse in a week. No. A day!”

 _“Riku!”_ Sora shoved at his arm, and Riku rolled with the motion, falling on his back and hand on his stomach, feeling it bounce as he laughed. “Come on. Wouldn’t you want me as a king?”

The question brought Riku up short, and he startled out of his laughter, looking at Sora as he held back the immediate answer on his tongue. In the lamplight Sora looked warm, blue eyes in a shade like home, brown hair made soft by the diffused light. He looked real and close and not behind the near translucent milky petals of a flower, looking like he might just sleep for eternity.

The silence was too loud. Sora’s brows drew together in concern.

On his back, Riku felt surprisingly vulnerable, but he just shifted his gaze to look at the stars instead. “Sure I would, Sora.”

Sora was quiet for a moment, before saying, “You don’t _sound_ sure.”

Riku laughed at that, a short quick bark. “You’d be a great king. As long as you have an advisor who does all the actual work,” he teased.

Sora scoffed. “That’d be you. Always getting stuck on the details, insisting there’s gotta be the _best_ and right way. And I’d have to just pick one and you’d complain about how I’m screwing it all up but it’d turn out just fine, great even”

“Well then, guess the only way our kingdom would survive is if we worked together.” A metaphorical kingdom where Riku made all the right decisions and Sora led them with his heart. It sounded nice, really.

“It’d definitely be by the ocean,” Sora said, voice drifting off along with his thoughts. “And the people would all be nice, too nice maybe, and the food would be great.”

He felt tug on his hair and looked askance. Sora was messing with Riku’s hair where it lay on the blanket in random curves, fingers idly following them as he spoke. It made Riku feel unbearably warm and he focused on the stars again.

“The weather would be really nice,” Riku said, trying to hide the way his voice wavered. “And it would rain a lot but that just makes everything grow more.”

“There’d be lots of delicious fruits, food stands, food from everywhere.” Sora sighed, and Riku snuck a glance to see his eyes closed. “And you’d be there, and Kairi, and everyone we know.”

“And there’d be no annoying parents,” Riku said, eyes slipping close. He could feel Sora looking at him, but Riku wasn’t in the mood to talk about his parents. He felt a twinge of guilt. He’d never really told Sora in words what his parents were like, how they’d changed. He thought that he should — but like all the other thoughts that twisted his stomach with nerves, he shoved it away.

“Then that means we’d have to cook for ourselves,” Sora pointed out, voice coming out from a scrunched up nose. Riku peeked and found he’d guessed right.

“Aw, cooking isn’t so bad,” Riku said. “Though I wouldn’t trust you in a kitchen.”

_“Riku!”_

Grinning, Riku shifted, folding his arms behind his head and opening his eyes again to see the stars. The ocean had been a rhythmic, comforting sound in the background, with crickets and frogs adding to the symphony, Sora’s steady breath by his ear.

“Well, if we live together then I don’t have to worry about cooking. _You_ can do that.”

“And what, be your glorified nanny? No thanks, I’ll pass. And anyways, who said we’d be living together?”

“Riku,” Sora mumbled, and then Riku made the very grave mistake of looking at Sora. He was pouting, blue eyes are all watery and begging, and Riku sighed aggressively. _Goddammit._

“I’m not doing all the cooking,” Riku grumbled, and Sora cheered.

“You’d cook and I’d walk the dog and Kairi would play music and every day would be fun,” Sora said, a soft scritching drawing Riku’s attention. He was drawing in the sand with a stick he’d found, reaching to the edge of the blanket. 24 lines, a castle; 10 lines, Riku; 13 lines, Sora with a crown; 12 lines, Kairi.

Riku shifted, supporting himself on an elbow, hand cupping his chin and partially covering his mouth. “...you draw like a six year old,” Riku muttered.

Sora immediately scowled. “Like _you_ can draw better.”

“Better than that? I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“Oh yeah? Do it.”

Grinning, Riku swung up to sit, legs swiveling to fold cross-legged as he snagged the stick from Sora, ignoring his protests as Riku nearly swiped the sand clean of his doodles.

He regarded the art carefully, set the tip of the stick in the sand, then closed his eyes. One long arc, the ground; carefully hovering higher up, 3 swerving lines, some mountains; beyond that, a squiggly line, the ocean; a soft _swish-swish_ as he gently eased the stick over the sand, the hazy outline of a sunset on the ocean; a half-circle, the sun setting.

He opened his eyes. The lines were just a little off, with the mountains cutting into the castle some, and the reflection had flicked sand over the rest of it, but still good enough. He sent a cocky smirk Sora’s way.

Instead of pouting though, Sora looked awed. “Wow, Riku! You saw the same thing I did!”

“What?” Riku asked, startled. Sora pointed at the mountains and sunset.

“All of this — yeah!”

There was no real deep meaning to it, Riku reflected. It wasn’t terribly unlikely they’d imagine the same thing. But Riku couldn’t help feeling a connection.

Before Riku could think of anything to say that was even halfway to normal, Sora exclaimed loudly and spun in place to find his humongous bag, rifling in its depths and slowly piling stuff on either side in the bag to find whatever he was searching for. With an _“a-ha!”_ Sora hauled out a bulky cloth-folded lumpy thing. It was clearly stuffed with things and wrapped with a cloth just to keep it altogether.

“I got this for you, Riku!”

Immediately apprehensive, Riku eyed it warily. Sora puffed his cheeks out. “Don’t look at it like that! It’s a gift for you, I swear.”

“The last gift from you was a wad of tissue covered in your snot,” Riku pointed out, something Sora had done when he’d violently sneezed then gave it to Riku so he could keep playing.

Sora frowned. “That doesn’t count,” he protested. “It wasn’t an _actual_ gift.”

“Oh? And so this is?”

 _“Riku,”_ again, warningly. Grinning, Riku looked aside, laughed a little, then waved with one hand for Sora to hand it over.

“I’m not sure if I should give it you anymore,” Sora grumbled, holding the bundle to his chest protectively. “Clearly you don’t appreciate my gifts.”

“Come on, Sora,” Riku said, rolling his eyes. “Give it to me.”

Sora grinned, all teeth and teasing. “Why don’t you make me?”

Without warning, Riku shot forward to snatch the bundle, disrupting the blanket and sand around them as he grappled with Sora’s arms to pry it loose. Sora shouted and scooted aggressively back, shoving with his feet until the blanket was all bunched around Riku’s legs where he was kneeling.

“Give! It! To! Me!” Riku grit out.

 _“Noooooo!_ ” Sora laughed and rolled onto his stomach, arms around the bundle keeping his weight from crushing it.

This was a prime opportunity. Riku grinned deviously and then ran his fingers along Sora’s sides, until he was really laughing and kicking his feet, trying to get away. When even that didn’t deter Sora, Riku snagged one of Sora’s ankles. He immediately tensed up, freezing as he pinned Riku with a wide-eyed stare from his curled up position on the ground.

“You wouldn’t,” Sora said, horrified.

Riku cocked a brow, holding Sora’s foot up. “Are you sure about that?”

“Riku, no—”

“This is your last chance—”

“Riku, I _swear—”_

Ruthlessly, Riku lightly ran his nails down Sora’s sole. The effect was immediate. Sora squealed and shouted and kicked so violently he clipped Riku’s shoulder hard enough to actually hurt, shouting, “ _No no no no no no Riku!”_

“Do you give?” Riku said over his shouts, still holding on despite Sora’s desperation increasing his wiggling.

“I give, I give!” Sora said between bouts of laughter. “You cheater!”

“Not cheating,” Riku said, sing-song.

“Totally cheating,” Sora retorted, yanking his ankle free and scooting into a sitting position, bundle still carefully held. Their sand drawing had been kicked over and disturbed, swiped through until it was hard to tell what it’d been originally, but Sora didn’t seem to notice. “But alright, deal’s a deal. Here,” and with no remorse, bright cheery grin back in place, Sora held out the bundle.

Riku also sat cross-legged across from Sora, settling the gift in between them. It was carelessly wrapped, more of a cloth tossed over and then pulled together. It certainly wasn’t wrapped all pretty with a bow on top, but Sora didn’t seem the type to pretty up a gift.

Unsure now of what it could really be, Riku hesitated, glanced at Sora’s very blue and bright eyes, and then unwrapped it.

At first, Riku didn’t know what to make of it.

It looked like a random assortment of things. Multi-colored seashells, coral, some kind of rock with a weird painted symbol on it, a pair of pretty chopsticks, a carved wooden dragon, some shiny coins, other things. Riku glanced at each item, hands hovering uncertainly as he couldn’t find a connection between them.

Glancing up, he found Sora had calmed down, smile settling into something warm and quiet. “...What is this?” Riku asked, voice dropped low as well, feeling for some reason abashed.

“Well,” Sora said, reaching over to grab the dragon. He turned it over in his hands, then presented it to Riku. “Can you figure it out?”

Riku took it lightly at first, rubbing his fingertips over the textured grain, feeling the rough unpolished edges. It curled at the edges and had a smooth design that Riku could appreciate, and it felt naggingly familiar.

“Come on,” Sora teased. “You can use that big head of yours and figure it out.”

Riku shot him a look and then it came to him, the realization like a ton of bricks as he looked at all the strange items again.

Seashells, dragons, coins. Riku picked up a shell in his other hand, rubbed his thumb over the grooves and ridges, then asked, voice small, “Why did you bring me these?”

Sora hummed, leaning back on his hands. “I figured, you know, when I was there that I wanted to bring you them. Show them to you, tell you about all those worlds. And then afterwards, I thought, you know, looking the way you did, that you hadn’t actually got the chance to explore. Didn’t let yourself, or something,” Sora rubbed under his nose a little awkwardly. “I thought you’d like them, like souvenirs.”

Riku felt his throat close. This was the first time Sora had brought up his appearance when he’d let the darkness take over. It was a conversation Riku had expected one day, but like all the other thoughts he hadn’t wanted to consider, he’d shoved it down again and again. Still, when the thoughts would first slither through his mind, it was of Sora pulling him aside, asking to talk, sitting them down, saying seriously, sternly, any number of things, disapproving or disgusted or disappointed or whatever other nightmare Riku’s brain could come up with.

He’d never expected that Sora would bring it up casually, even off-hand like this.

He looked down at the gifts, biting back on his teeth and ignoring the dull ache in his jaw.

Warm hands encircled Riku’s wrists, and when he looked up he found the smile gone from Sora’s face.

“Riku,” Sora said, and Riku was already shaking his head, pulling away. “Riku,” Sora said, more stern, tightening his grip. “Riku, you know. I,” he made a frustrated sound, and Riku’s shoulders bunched up of their own volition, head turning aside. “I’m no good with words, sometimes I just can’t… _say_ the things I really want. But, Riku, you know you’re important to me right? You always were, always will be, no matter what.”

Riku bit down on his lip hard, wishing more than anything that they weren’t having this talk, that they could go back to Sora laughing with tears in his eyes and Riku having an equally light, buoyant feeling in his heart.

“Sora,” Riku grit out, tugging again on the hold Sora had, but not hard enough to really break free. A token effort, just to show Sora that he really wanted nothing more than to run away, but to not hurt Sora by doing so. “I did so much.”

“I don’t care,” Sora said firmly. “That doesn’t make a difference to me.”

Riku looked up sharply at that in disbelief.

“Okay,” Sora amended. “I mean, yeah it matters to me, but it doesn’t _change_ anything. You’re still one of the most important people in my life, Riku.” He blushed a little at the admission, squeezing Riku’s wrists seemingly without meaning to, then realizing it and loosening his hold, until he was cradling Riku’s hands in his. “I went to all these worlds looking for you, worried sick about whether you were okay or, or, stuck in darkness, or alone, or—” Sora scowled with frustration, tilting his head to rub his cheek against his shoulder in an action reminiscent of how he’d normally scrub at his temple with his hand.

Then, he met Riku’s eyes, with all that blue and warmth and light. Riku held his breath, waiting, heart thudding painfully in his throat.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” Sora confessed. “I want us always to be together. I want to fight beside you, and I want to always be your friend, no matter what happens.”

Riku couldn’t help the maddening blush that crept up his neck, across his cheeks, clear to his forehead, as if all the blood had redirected their path from his heart to his face. Sora spluttered with laughter he couldn’t hold back, and Riku scowled, punching Sora gently in the shoulder but only because the dragon figure was still in his hand.

“Shut _up,_ Sora!”

“I-I’m sorry,” Sora said between laughter. “You just turned _so_ red.”

“I’m not the one spouting all this embarrassing stuff like _staying together forever_ and _being by my side.”_ Riku protested, pressing the back of his hand against his cheek, appalled at how hot it was.

“Hey, I said ‘always be together,’ not _forever,”_ Sora said, wagging his brows as Riku spluttered. Sora’s cheeks were red too, but nothing compared to Riku’s. But he was calming down already, the brief moment of levity enough to have soothed Riku’s nerves.

“But I was serious,” Sora murmured. He finally let go of Riku entirely, propping himself up with his arms again as he cut his gaze to the dark ocean and the moon’s reflection on its waves.

“You’re a sap,” Riku said, kindly. Sora grinned, cheeky. Riku thought about what Sora had said, looking down at all the gifts from each world he’d visited, some Riku hadn’t even seen. He thought of their imaginary kingdom where the people were nice and the food good and he and Sora were living happy lives, of the future idea of one day living together. How Sora still wanted to give him these little gifts, things he’d picked out just for Riku to see. How he joked around knowing how nervous Riku got when they talked about the darkness.

Sora was unbearably important to him, more than he knew, more than Riku would ever tell him. There were no words Riku could use to say how much Riku would do for Sora, what lengths he wouldn’t go to. Riku didn’t think he could ever tell him. There was no way to say what he felt, how much Sora meant to him. He just hoped it showed, in the small smile he gave Sora, in the way his heart beat slowed down from its thunderous pace, comforting like always just being beside Sora.

 _“You’re_ a sap,” Sora shot back.

Riku rolled his eyes, waved Sora closer with his hand. “Just tell me about all these worlds you went to, you dork.”

Sora shifted closed, but instead of focusing on the gifts, he shimmied onto his knees. Before Riku could ask what he thought he was doing, he felt too hot hands cupping his cheeks, tilting his head, and Riku thought _no wait what is he doing is he doing what I think he’s doing—_

Then Sora planted a featherlight kiss on Riku’s temple through his hair, cheeks puffed out, eyes squeezed shut, face lightly flushed. He sat down with a _whuff_ on his legs and then grinned up at Riku, eyes crinkled at the edges with the force of his smile, adorably red. Riku jerked a hand up to the spot, turning wide eyes on Sora.

Seeing his smile, though, Riku scoffed fondly and shoved Sora away by his cheek, glancing away in mild embarrassment. “God, Sora, hasn’t anyone ever told you to respect _personal space?”_

“No such thing between me and you,” Sora sang-song, then stuck his tongue out and licked Riku’s palm. He exclaimed in disgust and pulled away, then jabbed a finger against Sora’s forehead to keep him back.

“You’re so gross!” Riku scowled, and rubbed his palm off on Sora’s hair.

Again, they dissolved into another pointless argument, and by the time they focused again it was so late Sora was yawning and leaning against Riku’s shoulder, pointing out the different toys and murmuring their stories, the people he’d met, how he wanted to show Riku this place and that and how much he wished they could go adventuring together.

They fell asleep like that, with Sora tucked comfortably into the crook of Riku’s shoulder and neck, a tangled heap that was more comfortable than Riku thought it would be, and that he didn’t mind as much as he thought he would’ve.

There were more thoughts, thoughts he ignored again, but several of the deep seated ones had been brought to light, turned over in Sora’s hands, and dismissed.

Sora was still here, he was awake, he recognized Riku, he still wanted to be beside him —always together.

For the first time since Riku came back to Destiny Islands, he fell asleep to sweet dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first kh fic so I hope I did?? a good job?
> 
> Oh and here's my twitter @_oathbreaker


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